Stone coasters and poster with oil painting effect

While I am busy with painting furniture, I like to squeeze in a post about stone coasters. This is not my own creative idea, but I still like to share my experiences.

The basic stamping I found at a blog called huckabyshappilyeverafter and the gel transfer at Graphics fairy. I tried both techniques. First I tried the basic stamping. I purchased a package of 4″ light colored square tumbled stone tiles:

I purchased this package of 9 tiles for less than $4 at Home Depot. Not bad, but some are really crumbly and hard to use. I also purchased:

StazOn Ink pad in brown

clear stamps and

minwax finishing wax

cork sheet for backing

I wiped each side of the tile to remove any dust. Each of these tiles are different and some are really porous. I did not use the porous ones. I used the clear stamps and the first few times I pressed way to hard on the ink pad and the image was not clear/good. I learned my lesson quick, because you simply cannot fix a bad stamping job… Here are the stamping images I used:

After stamping your image let it dry for 30 minutes and use a clean rag to apply a thin layer of finishing wax (only the front). Finally at the back you add a piece of cut out cork. The ink stamping is very easy and quick to do, but I did ruin a few tiles. You have to be real careful!

Secondly I tried the gel transfer. The complete directions can be found on the Graphics fairy website. I followed her directions exactly and it worked out great. I purchased the gel at Michaels, and again I used the tiles from Home Depot.

Make sure you make a photocopy of your image, inkjet printers do not work here. I also brushed on 3 coats of Omni gel, one horizontal, let it dry, one coat vertical, let it dry and the last coat diagonally. I let it dry overnight.

I cut the image the size of the tiles and soaked it in a bowl of water for about 10 minutes.

While paper is wet, rub the paper backing with your fingers. You are left with the gel transfer with the number. Really cool! Cut out your transfer to fit the tile completely, and use more gel on the stone tile and the back of the gel transfer to adhere the image.

On the back I used adhesive backed cork. This is usually on sale at Michaels or Joann’s! I cut to fit the back of the tile.

I think these coasters are nice housewarming gifts!

I also used the Omni-Gel for something else…my son bought a poster a couple of years ago at the van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. He asked me, his crafty mother, to frame it. Does not sound too hard, right? Well, I do not remember WHAT I did but somehow I cut off some of the poster and it did not look right anymore. Well, when I read on the bottle of Omni-Gel: poster with oil painting effect, I immediately was thinking about the van Gogh poster. Here is the before picture:

I used the gel on this poster to give the print some texture and look of an original oil painting. You can apply the gel with artist’s brushes, and use it in different directions to create the texture. It took no more than 10 minutes to get this look: